Many new radio-frequency identification (RFID) applications have been introduced into the market in recent years. Naturally, all such applications would benefit from RFID tags that are smaller, lighter, and have greater read range.
Although studies have been conducted that have focused on improving the performance of planar antennas, high-frequency antennas have been successfully fabricated using three-dimensional fabrication techniques, such as additive manufacturing. These antennas have been fabricated using thermoplastics having a low loss tangent (as compared to commercially available substrates) such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and silver-based conductive paste (e.g., Dupont CB028). Such materials can be printed in a conformal manner and used to form non-planar three-dimensional printed devices.
In view of the availability of three-dimensional fabrication techniques, it would be desirable to fabricate RFID tag antennas using these techniques in order to obtain improved results in terms of one or more of cost, size, weight, and read distance.